Part 2: The Call From My Father-in-Law
The first time I saw the missed calls, we were sitting in a café at Disneyland.
Toby had chocolate around his mouth, a hat with Mickey ears, and an expression of total happiness.
“Mommy, can we ride the roller coaster again tomorrow?”
“A kid-sized one, sweetheart.”
“And can we buy Daddy a present?”
That question hurt more than I expected.
My son didn’t know how to hold a grudge. To him, his father was still the man who taught him to ride a bike on Sundays and bought him ice cream when it was hot.
He didn’t know that the same man had just decided a pile of boxes deserved a more comfortable ride than he did.
“We can get him one if you want,” I answered.
Toby grinned.
“I’ll get him a keychain!”
I turned my phone over on the table. Forty-one missed calls. Nineteen from Grant, nine from Barbara, three from a number I didn’t recognize, and ten from my father-in-law, Walter, who hadn’t phoned me once in six years.
I listened to none of the voicemails. I let Toby finish his cocoa, and we rode the teacup ride twice, and I laughed when he said the cups were “just like a washing machine, but fun.”
At eight that evening, after Toby fell asleep in the hotel bed clutching a stuffed Goofy, I finally sat by the window and played the messages.
Grant’s first voicemail was irritated. “Ellen, where are you? Mom’s been asking. Call me.”
The fifth was louder. “This isn’t funny. You can’t just disappear with my son.”
The ninth was cold. “Answer your phone, or I swear…”
Barbara’s were full of fake sweetness at first, then sharper. “Dear, everyone’s here and the roast is getting cold. It’s very rude to keep us waiting.”
Then came Walter’s, left at 6:52 p.m.
His voice was low and rough, the voice of a man who had rehearsed something.
“Ellen. It’s Walter. I’d like to talk to you. Not Grant, not Barbara. You. Please call me when you can. It’s about your mother’s money.”
I replayed it three times.
My mother had died four years earlier, when Toby was a baby. She’d left me a modest inheritance: the proceeds from the sale of her small house in Fresno, a little over $200,000. Grant had said it was “smart” to put it into the down payment on a bigger home for our family, and since his parents were co-signing the loan, the house would be in all of our names.
I’d signed the papers in an office with a stack of forms I barely read. I had trusted my husband.
I called Walter at nine.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Thank you for calling,” he said quietly. “Is the boy all right?”
“He’s asleep. He’s happy.”
“Good.” He cleared his throat. “Ellen, I owe you an apology, and I owe you the truth. I’m not proud of how I’ve treated you. I let my wife and my son run things for too long.”
“Walter, what about my mother’s money?”
There was a long pause.
“Tonight at dinner, Grant told his mother he’d ‘handle’ you when you got here,” Walter said. “He said you’d come around, that you always do. And Barbara said something about how it was a good thing that the house had been paid down with your mother’s money, because otherwise they’d never have kept it.”
I held the phone tighter.
“What do you mean, kept it?”
“Ellen, we haven’t owned our house free and clear for years. Grant told you we co-signed your loan. That’s not what happened.” His voice dropped. “Your money paid off our mortgage. Grant moved it. He told me it was an investment in the family. I didn’t ask questions, and I should have.”
The room felt very cold.
“How much?”
“One hundred and ninety thousand dollars.”
I closed my eyes.
“The deed to your house,” Walter went on, “was never in your name, Ellen. Grant said it was easier for taxes, so he held it with his mother. You’ve been paying a mortgage on a home you don’t legally own. I found the paperwork this afternoon while Barbara was out. I’ve been sitting in the garage for four hours, trying to decide what kind of man I’m going to be about it.”
I didn’t speak.
“I’m sending you copies,” he said. “Please find a lawyer. And Ellen, I’m sorry about the bus. I saw the car when he pulled up. I should have said something. I never will again.”
The line went dead.
An email arrived ninety seconds later, with eleven attachments.
